Jackass Genie: Difference between revisions

 

 

'''Brian''': Also, we saw when [[Christina Ricci]] asked a wizard to make her skinny, but the catch was that he could make her head as big as he wanted...|'''[[The Onion]]''', "[http://www.theonion.com/video/witch-who-granted-beyonce-beauty-and-fame-takes-si,27002/ Witch Who Granted Beyonce's Beauty And Fame Takes Firstborn]"}}

 

== Films -- Animated ==

* Jafar in the ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' sequel demonstrated this trope when Abis Mal asked for a legendary sunken treasure, he promptly brought him ''to'' the treasure, at the bottom of the sea, and forced Abis Mal to make a second wish to not die.

** That particular scene also has a very interesting [[Call Back]]: In the original ''Aladdin'' film, the Genie rescued Aladdin from drowning by accepting it as his second wish, even when he was incapable of wishing for it. In ''The Return Of Jafar'', Jafar "rescues" Abis Mal from drowning by accepting it as his second wish, even when he was incapable of wishing for it.

** Later in the movie, Abis Mal muses out loud about wishing for a famous treasure chest of some mythical king. Jafar (who is trying to pressure Abis into setting him free) ''traps him inside the chest'', just to remind him what'll happen if he tries it.

* [[Harlan Ellison]]'s "Djinn, No Chaser", which was adapted as an episode of ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'' in 1985 had a genie with this temperament because unlike the others he couldn't be freed via rubbing his lamp. Luckily for the lamp's final owner, she figured if the lamp couldn't be rubbed open she was going to brute force the damn thing with a can opener. She ended up with a grateful genie for a friend.

* ''[[Mad Men]]'' offers a non-fantasy example. After Harry, who's looking for a raise, pulls off a mild coup and impresses a client, his boss Roger calls him into his office.

'''Roger:''' Hey, you've already gotten something big! }}

** In later episodes, Harry is now considered solely responsible whenever something television-related goes wrong, but has no additional resources and still makes much less than people with fewer responsibilities.

* In the ''[[Round the Twist]]'' episode "Santa Claws", when each member of the family gets two wishes. Bronson wishes to be bigger than his brother Pete. Instead of making him a few inches taller, Claws makes him about as tall as the lighthouse (how he does this ''inside'' the lighthouse without killing him goes unexplained). Bronson is forced to wish himself back to normal.

* In [[The X-Files]] episode Je Souhaite, the genie is a [[Literal Genie]], but the genie who turned -her- into a genie seems to have been a jackass genie. She was living in medieval France, and had made 3 wishes - a stout mule, a magic bag full of turnips, and 'great power and a long life.' The genie decided to use that last wish to turn her into a genie trapped in his place. Jerk. She herself tends to be pretty mean also, but only when the wishes are stupid. Which, according to her, is 'all the time':

'''Jenn:''' Without fail. It's like giving a chimpanzee a revolver. }}

** It's clear that she is in fact a Jackass Genie (or a bitch, as Mulder puts it more bluntly after she makes everyone on Earth vanish after he wishes for 'peace on Earth'). She resents the fact that everyone's wishes are, in the end, self serving. The only wish she doesn't deliberately screw up is the one Mulder makes to turn her back into an ordinary person.

** Interestingly, the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' rulebook flat-out states in its entry on the "Wish" spell (which, as its name implies, lets the caster wish for things, albeit with some restrictions) that the Dungeon Master should try to play [[Literal Genie]] in order to prevent players from abusing it. (It lists as an example a wish for an enemy to die instead just send the player character into the far future when the enemy ''is'' dead, removing them from the campaign)

** And the spell "Speak with Dead", that allows a player to ask three questions of a corpse:

"Yes." }}

** Be wary of wishing for game breaking powers, since most DM's already have a list of counters for them. Oh, you want to be immortal? CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU ARE NOW A MOUNTAIN!!! You want unlimited wealth? You are teleported to a vault filled with gold. An air-tight vault filled with gold that has no means of opening on the inside. You want women? Sure, here you go: a thousand soul eating succubi! You want to be a god? Congratulations, you are now one, but since [[God Needs Prayer Badly]], and you have no worshipers, YOU INSTANTLY CEASE TO EXIST. You want to be invincible? You're turned into a lump of infinitely dense material that causes the entire universe to collapse into a super black hole created by your now invulnerable body. You want godlike magical powers? Great, but since your body isn't strong enough to harness them, your body explodes! The list goes on and on. You're better off just wishing for a cheeseburger, man...

**** To be fair, however, if the dragon already had their eye on the person, then the money itself didn't bring harm or attract unwanted attention...

*** In the ''[[Binder of Shame]]'', Ab3 of RPG.Net fame notes that some [[Killer Game Master|Killer Game Masters]] do this as their ''very style of running a game''. In the RPG.Net rant, "A Night At the Inn, A Day at the Racists," he recounts the tale of Psycho Dave, one particular such Game Master:

** ''[[Ravenloft]]'' also has a monster called a Wishing Imp, a magical statue that you CANNOT get rid of, that will explicitly try to pervert anything even remotely possible to be interpreted as a wish... It DOES classify as a curse though, the idea is that you should want to get rid of it.

*** Similarly, the Dark Powers seem to spend a lot of time thinking up ways to give Darklords exactly what they say they want and take away what they actually want. Such as Strahd's desire to evade death bringing with it the deaths of everyone he cared about.

** ''[[Tomb of Horrors]]'' features a cursed gem that purports to grant wishes; when the wish is made, it will do an exact opposite or otherwise turn the wish against you (given example: when asked to bring somebody back from the dead, it'll instead destroy his remains, or even kill somebody else), AND then it explodes, burning everybody in the vicinity to death.

* At one point Dragon Magazine dedicated an article to fleshing out a list of different types of wishes. Besides Benevolent and Malevolent, there were also Half wishes (Deliver half the wish, and cut it in half in a creative way), Misinterpretation wishes (guaranteed to always hear at least one word wrong in some way), and several more options for making the act of wishing that much more uncertain.

* One [[GURPS]] supplement offers a perk that causes any wish the character makes to err in his favor automatically specifically to avoid players writing out multipage wishes to avoid getting screwed over. Needless to say it's a tad over-powered for what should be a relatively minor ability.

* In ''[[Warhammer]]'', Daemons of Tzeentch love using this trope. It helps that most people are too terrified by their appearance to focus on wording the wish correctly.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' the Djinn of the Chamberpot interprets ''every single wish'' someone makes as asking to be turned into a chocolate statue. The first two times it happens it's more a case of being a [[Literal Genie]] ("Could you make me some chocolate?" and "Make me irresistible to women"), but the third time, no one even really makes a wish, they just shout "Oh good bloody hell!" The genie claims this is Viking for "Turn me into chocolate." When it's pointed out that the Vikings didn't ''have'' chocolate, he retorts, "But if they ''did'' they would have called it 'bloodyhell'."

** Incidentally, the reason this all is in the story is to parody the implausibility of how, in [[Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets|the original]], a series of coincidences led to no-one ever being killed by {{spoiler|the basilisk, even though just looking into its eyes was lethal. Time after time, the witness would happen to only see it in a mirror or similar.}}

'''Torg''': ''[[Lampshade Hanging|"That's freaking ridiculous!"]]'' }}

** And later, there are the demons Zefolas and Fezeel, who trick mortals to sell their souls for wishes. The first wish is always free, but the second will cost you... '''''YOUR SOUL'''''. You can imagine what the wishes they grant are like, especially the first wishes when they want you to make a second. They even like to grant wishes and make deals in their own realm, where they are almost omnipotent and can ignore any wish they like [[Wishplosion|that might harm them]], simply for sport. This allows them to take being Jackass Genies to the extreme, since they don't even have to limit themselves to twisting wishes asked for if it's not convenient. The only way to beat them turns out to be to ask for wishes that they don't realise can be used against them.

* ''[[The Repository Of Dangerous Things]]'' had the main character open up an aspirin bottle, only for a genie to pop out. When asked to get rid of his hangover, the Genie simply explodes his head (he survives, and later has his head regrown with another Dangerous Thing).

* ''[[Subnormality]]'' has a man wish to have, "Everything [he] could ever need!". The genie [[Anvilicious|immediately gets rid of all the non-essentials in the man's home]], his hair, and... some other things...

"For future reference, you now have one kidney." }}

** The page title reads "They're all like that, actually."

* [http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/08/this-comic-was-inspired-by-experience-i.html This ''Hyperbole and a Half'' post] is all about this trope.

* In the [[Homestar Runner]] toon ''[http://www.homestarrunner.com/ween09.html Doomy Tales of the Macabre]'', Marzipan wishes on a crystal ball for a new boyfriend. Since Strong Sad is playing [[Killer Game Master]] with everyone's fates, she ends up with Coach Z.

* Its a popular forum game to play "Wish Corrupter" the basic premise of the game is for Poster A to make a wish, Poster B grants it, but with either a literal or jackass twist. Poster B then wishes, Where Poster Q grants, and so on.

* In the ''Christmas Tree of Might'' special, ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'' turned Shenron into one of these when Krillin wished for the best tree ever. Shenron was so flat-out pissed that he proceeded to summon space pirates to plant a Christmas tree (of Might!) that would consume all the joy in the world.

** When Crocker gets a hold of Norm, he wishes for a series of absurdly impractical deathtraps for Timmy, prompting Norm to ''act'' somewhat benevolent but only to suggest that Crocker is not evil ''enough'' and that "Mars is really nice this time of year." When Timmy defeats Crocker and asks Norm to send him to Mars, he's so delighted to have his suggestion taken that he provides Timmy with a spacesuit to enjoy seeing Crocker act out the ending of [[Total Recall]].

* ''[[Gargoyles]]'' has fun with this trope in an episode called "The Mirror." Puck - the trickster fairy from ''A Midsummernight's Dream'' - is captured by Demona and forced to do her bidding. Puck, either out of a sense of mischief or a sincere desire to avoid harming others - possibly both - deliberately misconstrues Demona's wishes, as follows...

'''Puck:''' Did you say "''that'' Human" or "that ''Human''"? Oh, never mind, I'll figure it out. This just might be fun, after all. }}

** Rather than destroy Elisa, Puck uses his powers to turn her into a gargoyle. Thus, as he puts it "The ''Human'' Elisa Maza is no more." Demona, still not getting the drift, then makes him do it to the entire population of Manhattan. Needless to say, [[Hilarity Ensues]].